---
title: "Prominent MGH, and HMS affiliated, Research Department Benefits from Bacula Enterprise <br>HPC Technology"
published_at: "2025-11-19T04:19:36+00:00"
modified_at: "2025-11-23T13:36:05+00:00"
url: "https://www.baculasystems.com/customers/customers-success-stories/mgh-harvard-benefits-from-bacula-enterprise-hpc-technology/"
markdown_url: "https://www.baculasystems.com/customers/customers-success-stories/mgh-harvard-benefits-from-bacula-enterprise-hpc-technology.md"
taxonomy_language:
  - "English"
---

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HPC Technology

# Prominent MGH, and HMS affiliated, Research Department Benefits from Bacula Enterprise HPC Technology

### Overview

The Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital is a part of both the research community of the hospital and the Division of Medical Sciences of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. It also has a strong connection with the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, where most of its scientists hold concurrent appointments.

The [Department of Molecular Biology](https://www.massgeneral.org/research/molecular-biology)
 at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) was founded in conjunction with the Department of Genetics at [Harvard Medical School](https://genetics.hms.harvard.edu/welcome/history)
 (HMS). Thus, from its inception, the Department of Genetics has had two main units – a Quadrangle-based unit and an MGH based unit. While separated geographically, they nonetheless function as a single department with all members involved in mentoring junior faculty and in recruiting new faculty, a tradition that continues today.

Members of Molecular Biology carry out fundamental studies in bioinformatics, genetics, molecular biology, and related disciplines, on a variety of topics at the cutting edge of science and medicine. High Performance Computing (HPC) is an important part of the department.

### Challenges

Research at MGH’s Department of Molecular Biology is highly collaborative, spanning multiple institutions. Many researchers conduct significant activities at affiliated organizations such as The Broad Institute and Harvard’s CryoEM Center. This creates the operational challenge of transferring and protecting extremely large data sets for analysis back at MGH.

A single CryoEM microscope run can produce tens of terabytes of raw data at a time. Mainstream backup vendors often focused on high pricing, using ransomware fear-mongering to justify excessive licensing quotes. With substantial data volumes and multi-institution data movement, the department needed a solution that could:

- Efficiently capture sudden, unexpected data dumps
- Protect critical research data without performance degradation
- Avoid complex, error-prone configurations
- Deliver an enterprise solution at a reasonable cost